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How sharp should a sword be?
Henrik Granlid:
Actually....
Here you see the initial charge being done with lances, after which swords and axes come out. You can even see a front-line knight who hasn't had the time to draw his sword yet.
In the early middle ages, up to pretty much the 13th or 14th century, the primary weapon of the not wealthy was the spear, the wealthy used the lance. Axes and swords were secondary weapons. Once plate starts entering into the game, the primary weapons start to transition to polearms for foot soldiers.
As far as blade heft, a blade-heavy sword builds a better momentum when slaughtering people on the ground from horseback and chopps nicely. A pointed sword is a lot better for wresting into an opponents armpit or, in an emergency, using as a Friggin lance.
(there is a wonderful picture out there displaying a knight tucking his longsword under his arm for use as a lance)
Sir William:
--- Quote from: Sir Naythan on 2015-02-20, 22:27:59 ---How well should a sword cut? How sharp should it be?
I am wondering because I own an albion, and while it cuts fruit very well, I desired to try it on my old Gambeson. Well I have found, a thrust has a lot of struggle to penetrate it, and a cut does absolutely nothing. I can't cut through any cloth material with it, even when I draw my cuts.
Also on a note, albion tells me they charge 50 for a re sharpening. IF anyone on here has sword sharpening experience PM me.
--- End quote ---
Depends on what the sword was built for- the type of armament, I mean. You have the Hospitaller, a 12th C sword that was built for the cut (hack, slash, etc)- it of course can thrust but it wasn't made for that and the flex in the blade will tell you that if you thrust against something reasonably static. No surprise that it doesn't thrust well- but it should do well in the cut. As others have stated, there are any number of reasons why your sword didn't perform as you expected, largely due to user error as you yourself noted. Nice sword, try to take good care of it, eh? ;)
Sir Nate:
--- Quote from: Sir William on 2015-02-24, 17:08:18 ---
--- Quote from: Sir Naythan on 2015-02-20, 22:27:59 ---How well should a sword cut? How sharp should it be?
I am wondering because I own an albion, and while it cuts fruit very well, I desired to try it on my old Gambeson. Well I have found, a thrust has a lot of struggle to penetrate it, and a cut does absolutely nothing. I can't cut through any cloth material with it, even when I draw my cuts.
Also on a note, albion tells me they charge 50 for a re sharpening. IF anyone on here has sword sharpening experience PM me.
--- End quote ---
Depends on what the sword was built for- the type of armament, I mean. You have the Hospitaller, a 12th C sword that was built for the cut (hack, slash, etc)- it of course can thrust but it wasn't made for that and the flex in the blade will tell you that if you thrust against something reasonably static. No surprise that it doesn't thrust well- but it should do well in the cut. As others have stated, there are any number of reasons why your sword didn't perform as you expected, largely due to user error as you yourself noted. Nice sword, try to take good care of it, eh? ;)
--- End quote ---
I will.
--- Quote from: Henrik Granlid on 2015-02-23, 09:59:14 ---Actually....
Here you see the initial charge being done with lances, after which swords and axes come out. You can even see a front-line knight who hasn't had the time to draw his sword yet.
In the early middle ages, up to pretty much the 13th or 14th century, the primary weapon of the not wealthy was the spear, the wealthy used the lance. Axes and swords were secondary weapons. Once plate starts entering into the game, the primary weapons start to transition to polearms for foot soldiers.
As far as blade heft, a blade-heavy sword builds a better momentum when slaughtering people on the ground from horseback and chopps nicely. A pointed sword is a lot better for wresting into an opponents armpit or, in an emergency, using as a Friggin lance.
(there is a wonderful picture out there displaying a knight tucking his longsword under his arm for use as a lance)
--- End quote ---
Indeed. But there are many pictures where the swords are first drawn or the only weapon the knight seems to have
Which I think goes with my point, swords at this point since they still had wider blades towards the tip, would and could be used as a primary.
I think I will do more research on that though.
Sir James A:
The knights also seem to have a couple of people of shorter stature on a rope leash. The crown makes me think king. And the random livestock makes me think that picture *might* be an after-battle spoils of war processional of sorts. They don't seem to be actively fighting.
The second picture, I'm not quite as sure. But remember artwork isn't an exact science. One guy had his helmet and skull split open, and this simple doesn't happen with swords.
And back to the original question; what were you cutting against where the sword did and did not cut? That's important.
Ian:
One entirely important and often ignored point about using the Mac Bible as a resource. It's a bible.
It's depicting stories from the bible, and often uses exaggeration to depict heroic events, like cleaving helmets in half and slicing people in half through maille hauberks in one fell swoop. The artist likely knew those things were not possible, but that's exactly why he painted them, to get the point across that these are biblical figures, not just ordinary knights and men-at-arms.
For example this isn't some 13th century knight in battle. This is specifically David killing the 200 Philistines:
The crowned figure on the green horse is also King David in the other plate posted above.
It was just normal medieval convention to depict past events using contemporary material culture. So even though the Mac Bible shows events from 1200+ years earlier, everyone's in contemporary clothing and armor.**
** - that convention holds true a majority of the time, but there are exceptions where they did try to depict older style objects when depicting historical events
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